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Scott M. Stolz

Entrepreneur & Author

Authorship Studio is part of a decentralized social media network powered by Hubzilla.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 13:39:47 -0600

atomicpoet@firefish.city

If you believe the Fediverse should operate in an "opt-in" manner, why don't you create or join Fediverse servers that block everything by default, and only federate with servers that are deliberately whitelisted?

This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

@fediversenews@venera.social

show all 34 comments

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 13:46:55 -0600

Sigrid Solveig Haflínudóttir

sigrid@nein.ftrv.se

@atomicpoet @fediversenews "everything" as in "everything to do with big corps" yes, that's exactly what I'm doing on my own server.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 13:47:32 -0600

Shoq

shoq@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet I have never understood why this was even an issue. If you insist on controlling, or being protected from what goes in or out of an instance, than join an instance that does that openly and enjoy your bubble of choice. Done.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 13:55:20 -0600

13 barn owls in a trench coat

HauntedOwlbear@eldritch.cafe

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I'm thinking about it for the micro instance I run, but I'm concerned about it being labour intensive, as my public account for work stuff is on there.

As it is, I block servers (etc) the users (all four of them) might not want, and unblock them if they want me to.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:01:58 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@sigrid@nein.ftrv.se @fediversenews@venera.social How do you know if a server is owned by a big corporation?

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:10:44 -0600

Sigrid Solveig Haflínudóttir

sigrid@nein.ftrv.se

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I read the news.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:12:12 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@sigrid@nein.ftrv.se @fediversenews@venera.social It's what doesn't appear in the news that I fear most.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:46:08 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews You are referencing a known corporate backed instance. When I joined Mastodon it was because the vast majority of the fediverse was people who believed (that's what they said) in open, free, non-corporate backed, no advertising social media. Large publicly traded, profit driven, shareholder controlled entities are now entering this space. Going forward it may be necessary (for me) to initially block. I will be migrating.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:09:28 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@noondlyt@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social I’m actually not referencing one particular corporate-backed instance. Threads wasn’t even top of mind.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:13:14 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I was talking about Bluesky and Threads.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:18:27 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@noondlyt@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social Okay, but I'm referencing everything that creates debate over opt-in/opt-out: bridges, bots, search engines, servers, federation, etc.

Every time there's a debate about what's allowable, someone says, "I didn't opt in".

However, if you're not running a server that blocks everything by default, except for whitelisted servers, you're not opting into anything. By default, when a server "sees" another server, they are federated.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:21:05 -0600

lily 🏳️‍⚧️ :flag_pansexual: θΔ ⋐ &

tauon@possum.city

@atomicpoet@firefish.city no one says this

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:23:31 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@tauon@possum.city Actually, many people are saying this. I'm constantly seeing "everything on the Fediverse should be opt-in."

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:25:44 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I am not happy that the same protocol is used by every corporation I do business with online. This should not be the same experience. Opt in is consent. This place is not a corporation. When it starts operating like one, it will be time to leave. My question for you is this: Why do you think they chose opt out as default?

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:25:51 -0600

lily 🏳️‍⚧️ :flag_pansexual: θΔ ⋐ &

tauon@possum.city

@atomicpoet@firefish.city i've never seen anyone say this ever. i have seen people say things like scrapers and bridges should be opt-in, which is completely reasonable, but i've never seen a single person say federation should be opt-in. if anyone did think that, they'd be on one of those allowlist instances.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:30:36 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@noondlyt@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social Yes, opt-in is consent. What exactly have you consented to? When have you specifically ever consented to a malicious server receiving your content? When have you explicitly consented to people, many of them bad actors, following you and sending you messages?

Regarding why the Fediverse-at-large prefers opt-out by default, it's pretty apparent to me: software engineers and server admins prize visibility and discoverability over safety and consent.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:38:44 -0600 last edited: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:45:30 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@tauon@possum.city Just because you've never seen someone say this ever doesn't mean they never say it.

I have, in fact, seen people say that federation should be opt-in. For example, they explicitly say this about Threads, which won't operate as a scraper or a bridge, but instead as an ActivityPub-enabled server.

I've also seen them say this about my tiny server, atomicpoet.org -- which is not a corporate-owned server, but has an astonishing two users that use it (including me).

Also, saying bridges should be opt-in is totally unreasonable. Should an RSS feed to and from the Fediverse be opt-in as well? What about XMPP and email?

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:40:12 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@Chris Trottier No one is stopping someone from having an opt-in server. In fact, if you truly want privacy, you might want to check out Streams, where users can use the opt-in method themselves. Only stuff you allow in will be let in, and you can even make your posts private and visible to only people you select. So opt-in servers are already available. It's just not widely known at the moment.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:42:42 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@scott@authorship.studio You're right, no one is stopping me from having an opt-in server. I can operate one if I want. I just choose not to.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:45:11 -0600

lily 🏳️‍⚧️ :flag_pansexual: θΔ ⋐ &

tauon@possum.city

@atomicpoet@firefish.city i'm not saying no one said it (okay, yes i did, but i didn't think you were serious), i'm saying i've never seen anyone say that.

the people in that case are wrong. the "threads should be opt in" is a response to people saying "we're fediblocking threads for hate speech". they don't want all federation to be opt-in, they want to only have their own user account be able to federate with an abusive instance. this is wrong, because would we allow federation with truth social or whatever to be opt in?

this is probably just someone who's misinformed. you can politely say to them "you federate with loads of instances! why mine?" or, maybe they think you're a techbro or something. happens to people a lot.

rss, xmpp, and email aren't bridges. rss from is provided by the server, and rss to is provided by bots. xmpp is a native feature of the instances that support it, therefore, they are real xmpp instances. email is just email, it's a core part of the web at this point. bridges refer to bridges between two different decentralised protocols. don't get this confused with something like friendica or hubzilla, which is one instance that supports many protocols.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:56:16 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@tauon@possum.city Let's do a thought experiment. If I operate the BBC's RSS feed, have I explicitly consented to someone setting up a Fediverse account to broadcast that feed?

Not at all. And yet, that's what press.coop does all the time.

Or, let's say I operate a bridge that converts Fediverse posts into XMPP messages, and vice versa. Have I consented to that? I should mention that bridge already exists:

https://nlnet.nl/project/Libervia/

If someone wanted to, they could crosspost publicly available ActivityPub posts into an email listserv. Perhaps someone has already done this, and I doubt anyone has ever explicitly consented to this.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:09:39 -0600

lily 🏳️‍⚧️ :flag_pansexual: θΔ ⋐ &

tauon@possum.city

@atomicpoet@firefish.city if you operate an rss feed, you're specifically saying people can syndicate that content.

i don't know an instance of that project in use, but it seems to me like it's similar to what i was talking about previously - a server that implements both protocols. this is fine.

as for the final one, it doesn't matter what anyone wants to do. for example, if someone wanted their post to be sent as an email, they could tag a bot which would do it for them, then they could receive a notification for any replies. none of this should be done without the user knowing or allowing it. i'm not sure what your issue with allowing users to control what happens to their data is. it's part of the design of the fediverse.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:26:05 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@tauon@possum.city When people are operating an RSS feed, are they explicitly saying that someone else can re-syndicate it on another protocol? I’m not sure that’s the case.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:28:02 -0600 last edited: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:28:26 -0600

Brett Kosinski

brettk@indieweb.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews @noondlyt On the topic of opt out by default, there's a more basic issue beyond visibility and discoverability: scale. With tens of thousands of instances, opt-in would be impossible to manage (every new instance would have to contact every other in order to federate) and the network would rapidly centralize into a few very large instances.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:20:35 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I agree with you on your last point. I have not here yet. Meta and Bluesky are known entities. They are concerned with one thing - $. How these federations are handled should address the fact that many people now here found corporations making terrible decisions at the expense of the people that use their product. I understand that any and all can join the Fediverse, but corporations are not people and we should remain skeptical.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:21:21 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@scott Thank you. I was not aware.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:38:11 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@noondlyt@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social Two thoughts for you:

For legal liability reasons, I hope whatever server you join is run by a corporation, not a private individual. Lawsuits happen on the Internet, and without protection, they can inflict a lot of damage. Since the Fediverse assumes “opt out”, this is a particular concern.

Second, if I were to join a server, I would be concerned about how they’re paying the bills. Running a server can be costly, especially if that server allows open registrations. If a server can’t sustain itself financially, be very worried.

There’s a reason why my own server is closed. I spend $10/month to run it.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:02:09 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I donate voluntarily to my server and 3 others regularly. Not quite sure why you would think I would sign up on a corporate server. It is the antithesis of what I am looking for. The Corporations are the problem, not the solution. #Myanmar

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:08:44 -0600

Chris Trottier

atomicpoet@firefish.city

@noondlyt@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social Corporations come in many forms. Currently, the one you use is run through a non-profit corporation. Others like cosocial.ca and social.coop run as co-operative corporations. And yet others like twit.social and me.dm run as for-profit corporations.

The reason I avoid servers run by private individuals has nothing to do with profit and more to do with legal liability and financial sustainability. Put simply, I don't want my admin to wreck their life due to some asshole who does something untoward or even illegal. I also want to ensure that the funds I spend are well-managed.

I speak from experience. Last year, I spent over $2,000 on various Fediverse services, keeping certain servers afloat.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:30:05 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@Chris Trottier Sorry, I was replying to something you were talking about, not talking specifically to you. I probably should have worded it better. Sometimes I wish we had a plural form of "you" in English, because in that post you was plural and not directed to any particular person.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:38:48 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@LAUREN Unfortunately, if you don't have a legal entity, in most jurisdictions you have unlimited liability. That means that if something happens to your fediverse server, someone can sue you and literally take your house, retirement, savings, car, furniture, and anything else they can take from you.

If you have a corporation, or limited liability company, or public benefit corporation, or an incorporated non-profit, then you have limited liability. People can only sue the organization and can only take the amount you have invested into it.

There are some jurisdictions, such as Texas, that give some limited liability protection to unincorporated non-profit associations, but they have to be structured in a certain way to receive limited liability, and not all jurisdictions give unincorporated non-profit associations limited liability protection.

So unless you want to risk losing everything you built up over the years, it is wise to incorporate or form an LLC, just to protect yourself.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:42:25 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet @fediversenews Non-profit or not for profit being key. I have the utmost respect for anyone that endeavors to run their own instance(s). It is a full time job in many cases and not easy. The less glamorous side of federation. No one should run themselves into the ground mentally or financially.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:52:28 -0600

LAUREN

noondlyt@mastodon.social

@scott I am not speaking about this particular subject. I am talking about Meta. I am talking about Bluesky. These are corporations whose singular purpose is to profit off of their user base. That is not what the fediverse is about. People incorporating for legal reasons are not the same as these entities.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 21:19:16 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@LAUREN I understand. I am a bit apprehensive about how they will influence the fediverse. And there is the fear that these large entities will railroad the smaller players in the fediverse into doing it their way.

But I am a big proponent of choice, and I think people should be given choices. This includes choosing which provider to have a account on, and who they follow and don't follow, etc. And part of that is by not allowing monopolies and anti-competitive behaviors, and just as importantly, making sure that small players can thrive and prosper themselves.

When Bluesky connects to ActivityPub via a bridge, and Threads and WordPress connect to ActivityPub natively, we will have four major players (the fourth being Mastodon), and lots of smaller players.

I actually think this is a good thing if Bluesky joins. At least it is a public benefit corporation, which has a legally binding public mission. That is better than Meta.

Right now Meta could easily dominate the fediverse as soon as it connected with an overwhelming userbase. WordPress could as well, with its millions of blogs. And for the people who already use software that is not Mastodon, we are already feeling overwhelmed by Mastodon's influence.

A little competition and collaboration would be good, as long as we make sure that smaller players can prosper. And because of the federated and multi-protocol nature of the fediverse, I think that is possible if we structure it right.

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 07:04:48 -0600

snahn ip

sn0n@mastodon.social

@scott for anyone who dering what streams is, like I was, here ya go: https://codeberg.org/streams/streams I think? LoL

Sorry, you have got no notifications at the moment...